S. Palin, the Candidate

Let's forget all about studying the entrails of chickens, also known as polling far in advance. I know exactly who will be the Republican candidate for U.S. President in the next round of national elections, three or four years from now. To determine this took no sort of deep thinking, extensive research, or a direct line into the Fates, nor should it come as any sort of a surprise.

It will be Ms Sarah Palin, ostensibly of Alaska. Of this I have absolutely no doubt, and all of those other birds vying for the chance have no chance -- should she stay out of Alaska and thus avoid the numerous plane rides over all those glaciers, which I myself have seen from overhead and can attest to their stark, dreadful presence, even if they are melting away at a pretty good clip. There are many reasons why she will be the preferred darling of the electoral Dark Side, and the first of these is Color.

That's obvious from all the piotures of her that you see. She always presents a rich mixture of all the reds, pinks, browns, and ambers imaginable, and this jumps right at you off the page or the screen, so that, compared to her all her Republican adversaries and colleagues look exactly what they are: nothing more than a collection of walking stalagmites, all with white, rounded, ice cold tops. And that Color is not just in her physical appearance but also in the things she does, as attested to by her suddenly throwing up the Alaska governorship, which threw a lot of dummies for a loop, though not me. And she has plenty more where that came from. She has, after all, been distinguished by having been fined for fishing without a license, which suggests that she has committed that same perfidy plenty of other times. So, despite her appearance, she is no "hothouse beauty." She's something else. Aside from having Color, she is also Larcenous, and she is also Bold.

Another reason she will be the Republican candidate -- besides the Color, the Larceny, and the Boldness -- is her Competition for the honor. She has none, because right now the Republicans are especially suffering from what has been one of their enduring weaknesses, and that is a lack of candidates with any semblance of true distinction. Till now they've been able to get over that by appealing strictly to that side of the American electorate that still thrills to an act of outright thuggery that took place in the Boston Harbor over 200 years ago, the tossing overboard of numerous chests of perfectly good tea that had been picked and processed with so much loving care mostly by nice, little Oriental ladies, a heinous act performed by rowdies some of whom tried to cover up their crime by trying to blame it on the wearers of feathers and deerskins. The big issue then was taxes, and it still is, to that side of the American electorate, and so all these candidates know is to promise to ask for the payment of none -- or at least no taxes beyond what will be needed to keep themselves in numerous perks and style, once they take office, plus buying guns and ammo that the young male element can use to fire and blow off their congenital violence and steam, along with the ships and planes to take them to foreign fields where they can do that sort of thing far out of American sight, hearing, and the onus of cleaning up.

So to satisfy the Republican base, Ms. Palin need not do all the studying that many have demanded of her. She need only to promise no new taxes, and to oppose everything that the Democrats suggest, even that the Sun always rises in the east and sets down in the west, and that will be all she will need. Her base, looking at her, will not expect her to have any more knowledge of economics, the environment, the climate, the Middle East, influenza, health care, or anything else than she had when McCain grabbed her off the glaciers, and, pretenses aside, she will be a shoo-in in the 2012 primaries. After all, the Republicans just finished holding sway for eight long years with a man in the Oval Office who was similarly devoid of the information and the insights -- an Empty Bag without even her sort of Flair and Color.

Be advised that I'm not the only one who has reached these conclusions. The media knows all too well that the Palin woman will be the GOP's choice, and they have already ordained her as such. They pay far more attention to her than they do to suspects with names like Jindal, Romney, Pawlenty, Lieberman, or even McCain. From now till then Ms Palin can count on hogging the lion's share of the media's attention no matter what she does and says, and with that on her side, how can all those other, colorless Republican laggards have any kind of a shot at the moose?